The last time Prince came to Dallas a few years ago, I took my wife to the concert as a birthday present - killer seats. It was during his Musicology tour.

I was a fan but not really a fan - until the show. One of the best live performances I've ever seen.... ever. Never much considered him as a guitar player either - again, until the show. Absolutely blew me away - not a good guitar player, but a great one. His funk stuff was beyond tight.

"Back in 1988, Prince played a show at the Worcester Centrum. In those dark, pre-Internet days, fans would line up outside Tower Records at the corner of Newbury Street and Mass. Ave to buy concert tickets.

Because it was the apex of Prince’s popularity, a line had formed outside the store the night before tickets went on sale. At 1:45 a.m., a car driven by a 21-year-old Beverly man jumped the curb and plowed into the line, killing 17-year-old Frederick Webber of Livonia, Mich., a student at the Berklee College of Music.

“Everyone was horrified by the accident,” nightclub czar Patrick Lyons recalled. “We wanted to do something, so we thought we’d get a scholarship in the kid’s name at Berklee. Prince said he would do a show at our club on Lansdowne Street after his show at the Centrum. But he couldn’t get there until 2 a.m.”

Now as you well know, Boston shuts down at 2 a.m., so putting together an all-night show required a special license, police presence and “the most deft handling,” Lyons said.

But somehow, he pulled it off. “Prince arrived at 2 a.m.,” Lyons recalled. “The room was completely blacked out. All you could see were the little red lights on the Marshall (speaker) stands on the stage.

“All of a sudden, you heard this wailing guitar and Prince starts playing ‘When Doves Cry,’” Lyons said. “No one could see him. He played the entire song on a completely black stage. The second song, the lights came on and it was complete mayhem. He played for two hours until 4:30 in the morning.

“So that was a good deed, and Prince did it,” Lyons said. “And it was the only time a licensed establishment in the city of Boston got a permit for an all-night concert.”

Quite the performance. Love how in the end he tosses his Tele to someone in the pit and just struts away.

The back story on this was that the producers of the show felt that Prince wouldn't be a good fit with everyone else on the stage (Prince got word of that and was insulted). But Petty kept pushing for him and wanted to show the producers and the world what a great guitar player he was. You could see Prince glancing over at Petty after each solo segment and Petty kept giving it back to Prince. To me, the guitar toss at the end was like dropping the mic and walking off stage in a big F U to the producers. Greatness.